Halloween is one of my top favorite holidays! There is just something so special about decorating your home for Halloween and the fall season in general. Now that it’s mid-September, it’s socially acceptable to start decorating for Fall + Halloween, right? Well even if it’s not, our house is still ready to go for Fall! I love making decorating for Halloween a whole family activity and inviting my kiddos to join. It makes for a space they enjoy, as well as, core memories for me. I know the budget can be tight especially leading up to the holidays, so I wanted to give you some tips for how to affordably decorate for Halloween with kids! Keep reading for all the goodies.
Halloween Shopping Spree
When decorating your home for any holiday, it can seem daunting to think of ways to include your kids in the process that they will actually want to do. I have the ultimate hack for you for any holiday, especially Halloween. Take your kids shopping with you and let them pick stuff out! Every year I take my kids and walk around the Dollar Store/99 cent store at Halloween. The Dollar Store has all different kinds of decor, crafts, etc.
The best part is they’re cheap! You can make a game out of it too. Maybe they only have 5 minutes to pick out their favorites or they can get whatever they can carry. I love doing this with my kids because they feel a sort of connection to the decorations since they had a hand in picking them out!
Homemade Halloween Crafts + Signs
The best and cheapest way to make affordable Halloween decorations is to make them at home with your kids! Stock up on craft supplies and supplies to carve or decorate pumpkins from the Dollar Store and make it your own. Start a tradition and make a night out of it. Spend the evening having fun with your kids, making signs with pumpkins and ghosts, and decorating pumpkins. Kids Craft Barn has tons of great craft ideas for the fall!
Easy Ways to Decorate for Halloween
An easy way to look festive for Fall and Halloween with very little effort and money is by adding pillows and a fall blanket to your couches! I made an LTK of my favorite blankets + pillows this season. Head to this link for blankets. This link for pillows. And this link for my favorites with dark witchy vibes.
Extra Spooky Decorations
Bats and spider webs are my favorite little touches to add around the house to give it a little extra spooky vibe. The kids can help put up the bats with you, as well. Just buy these sticky ones from Amazon and they are super easy to hang! For spider webs, you can either make your own with pipe cleaners (this video shows you how) or we buy these ones from Amazon! We put them all over the house, on the walls, on frames, all over the place. They just elevate the spooky that much more, and it’s so easy even the kiddos can help out!
Day of The Dead
My husband is a big Day of the Dead fan so we make an Ofrenda each year with all the decorations we get from Amazon and the Dollar Store. For those of you who don’t know, an Ofrenda is an offering placed in a home altar during the Day of the Dead celebration.
Since my step dad passed away, we have used this to celebrate him and everyone we love that has passed. It makes it so we can set aside time to celebrate them and feel those emotions on that specific day rather than feeling all the feelings on the day of their passing every year.
We, also, make and decorate our own sugar skulls with the kids. It’s a fun craft to do with them while creating good memories around the Day of the Dead. If you’re wanting to make your own sugar skulls with your kids this year, this is a great mold and these dyes are perfect!
Things you need for a proper Day of the Dead:
- Candles
- Orange flowers We use these fake ones.
- Picture frames We buy them from the Dollar Store and print photos at Walgreens. (There’s always a promo code.)
- Flags Here are some cute ones from Amazon.
- Copal incense to draw in spirits We use this from Amazon.
- Objects that represent favorites of the deceased
- Pan De Muerto
- We make our own with the whole family, and its actually delicious! Here’s the easy recipe we use.
My Favorite Stores for Halloween Decorations
Some of my other favorite stores to find options to decorate for Halloween, that aren’t always as cheap, are the Hobby Lobby and Target Halloween section (of course). Michaels, like Hobby Lobby, is a super good option. They almost always have Halloween + Fall decor on sale. Normally, if you go and they don’t have a sale going on, come back the next week and everything will be on sale again! My family also loves going and walking around those pop up Halloween stores, like Spirit Halloween. They usually have tons of fun decor that the other stores won’t have, but definitely won’t be as cheap as the other stores.
No matter your budget, decorating for Halloween with your kids can be fun! Get creative with it. Contrary to what TikTok tells you, your house doesn’t have to be all out decorated with Pottery Barn pumpkins. Craft things with your kids, make those memories with them, decorate for Halloween how they want rather than spending tons of money at the store! At the end of the day they’ll remember the time you spent together creating memories over how expensive the decorations look. Happy Halloween!
For all the parenting tips + tricks, head to my blog! I’ve got all the parenting education you could ever want over there and I’m constantly putting out new education!